My initial reaction to encountering a book with this title was to be be reminded of Randy Newman's camp-classic song "It's Lonely at the Top": a smug alert went off in my head. Turns out, however, that it's a deft little (192-page) piece of scholarship that takes up resonant questions in a notably fair-minded way. The book deserves wide consideration in a variety of contexts, and I will not be surprised if it turns out to be a fixture on undergraduate syllabi for many years to come.

After a brief -- and necessary -- introduction that notes many people throughout history have considered themselves chosen, the authors perform an elegantly simple piece of exegesis on the Book of Genesis, in which they tease out the many ambiguities that lurk in the covenants God made with Abraham and Moses. This analysis includes discussions of the repeated failures on the part of the Israelites to keep up their part of the deal, as well as the burdens, psychological as well as political, that being a chosen people imposed on them. Gitlin and Leibowitz note that Zionism emerged both as an ethnic alternative to the assimilationist thrust of post-Napoleonic emancipation as well as a secular alternative to diaspora Judaism. But the post-1948 fusion of people, faith and land created a spiritual cocktail that even the most hard-bitten pragmatists found impossible to resist after the Israel's territorial gains in 1967. The authors consider this a bad bargain, and criticize those who unstintingly embrace it as indulging in worship of "a golden calf," though they do not repudiate the idea of a Jewish homeland.

Gitlin and Leibovitz then shift their gaze to the United States. In some ways, the analysis is familiar -- we hear lots about the Puritans, of course -- but we also hear some surprising accents. Despite his religious skepticism, the authors show Thomas Jefferson as a full-throated exponent of the United States as a Promised Land, evident in his famous assertion that "those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his substantial deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." Though it's possible to discern latent heterodoxy in Jefferson's use of the word if (there are any chosen people) Gitlin and Leibovitz make a compelling case that a covenant sensibility shaped Jefferson's approach to the Louisiana Purchase, and that this sensibility coursed through the psyches of his successors.

The title of this part of the book, "His Almost Chosen People," comes from a single reference in speech Abraham Lincoln delivered on his way to Washington in 1861. Gitlin and Leibovitz stint the degree to which the word "almost" decisively checks Lincoln's embrace of the idea, notwithstanding that the Great Emancipator famously described the United States as the "last, best, hope of earth" (a phrase, curiously, that they do not quote). In any case, it remains true that the language of the chosen people recurs through the rhetoric of politicians ranging from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush. As in the parallel case of Israel, that language can be alternatively sacred and secular, invoked in the name of principle or real estate, and those who reject such language understand they operate in a discourse saturated in it.

From here, the authors then turn their attention to the so-called "unchosen." The core of their analysis is an arresting juxtaposition between the Jews' relationship with the indigenous population of Palestine, and that of the U.S. with Native American peoples. Gitlin and Leibovitz also take a critical look at those who react to the claims of the chosen by fashioning counter-narratives of their own chosenness; while typically a minority impulse, compounds difficulties for just about everybody. They note that the majority of Palestinians, for example, reject the extremism of Hamas.

The Chosen Peoples concludes with a look at the U.S.-Israeli relationship itself, one Gitlin and Leibovitz assert has transcended self-interest and the seeming contradiction of a harmonious tie rooted in separate claims of primacy. Again, they specifically reject the proposition that either nation can disown its chosen identity; instead, they regard it as something that must be grappled with in an ongoing and creative way.

In the acknowledgments that follow the main text of the book, the authors thank "Columbia University, which gave Todd Gitlin the opportunity to teach several sections of Contemporary Civilization." It's not often that a senior scholar expresses gratitude for the privilege of teaching standard service courses, even courses as storied as those in Columbia's CC program. But the experience was clearly invigorating in allowing a powerful thinker -- one who has spent most his time grappling in twentieth century U.S. history -- to engage a new set of discourses. The Chosen Peoples is a worthy testimonial for teaching and writing grounded in foundational sources and clear-eyed prose.

About King's Survey

King's Survey is an imaginary high school history class taught by Abraham King, a.k.a. "Mr. K." Though the posts proceed in a loosely chronological fashion, you can drop in on the conversation any time. For more background on this series, see my other site, Conversing History. The opening chapter of "Kings Survey" is directly below.

“The Greatest Catholic Poet of Our Time . . . Is a Guy from the JerseyShore? Yup,” in The Best Catholic Writing 2007, edited by Jim Manney (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2007)

“I’s a Man Now: Gender and African-American Men,” in Divided Houses:Gender and the Civil War, edited by Nina Silber and Catherine Clinton (Oxford University Press, 1992).

THE COMPLETE MARIA CHRONICLES, 2009-2010

Most writing in the vast discourse about American education is analytic and/or prescriptive: It tells. Little of that writing is actually done by active classroom teachers. The Maria Chronicles, like the Felix Chronicles that preceded them (see directly below), takes a different approach: They show. These (very) short stories of moments in the life of the fictional Maria Bradstreet, who teaches U.S. history at Hudson High School, located somewhere in metropolitan New York, dramatize the issues, ironies, and realities of a life in schools. I hope you find them entertaining. And, just maybe, useful, whether you’re a teacher or not.–Jim Cullen